I’ve been thinking a lot about cars lately. Maybe it’s from being home from school and actually driving again.

Good magazine just published its spring issue. Its devoted to the future of transportation. You can read it HERE. I’ve been reading the magazine all week, and then today I read P.J. O’Rourke’s eulogy of the American love of cars in the Wall Street Journal (Click HERE).

As an aside, I love Good magazine. It’s published four times a year and lets you donate 100% of your subscription fee to various charities. I just bought one for a friend by making a donation to a microfinance organization.

But what I really want to discuss is transportation. It seems the timing of the two articles I mentioned couldn’t have been more fortuitous. Good looks at the future of American transportation, which includes a lot more public transportation options, increased “casual carpooling,” “hyper-miling” and the rise of the electric car.

Rourke, in contrast, discusses the past and the present. He writes about how we fell in love with cars, and why we’re going through a painful breakup.

I hate to drive and I love public transportation. So if the future is really bringing me more public transportation options, I’m thrilled. Options like this make a lot of sense. They allow us to get from point A to point B in the most efficient way.

I was talking to my dad about “hyper-miling,” which is a niche competitive activity where people attempt to beat the EPA’s designated fuel rating for their car. Wayne Gerdes, who works for CleanMPG, holds the hyper-miling record. He once drove a Prius from Chicago to New York on a single tank of gas. He holds the current record for the highest sustained mpg (220 mpg) and longest tank (2254 miles).

Anyway, my dad made an important point. We don’t use cars the way they’re built to be used. Most cars achieve optimal efficiency when driving on the highway, not during stop and go city driving.
This is where increased public transportation comes in, particularly in cities. Public transportation offers a more efficient way of moving through cities.

As for here in the Capital District, we don’t have great public transportation infrastructure. So that’s not the best option for increasing fuel efficiency. But this summer, instead of just talking about it, I’m going to make a real effort to carpool with my co-workers. Taking one car off the road may seem trite, but it’s a start.